Elizabeth Smart Joins ABC News to Cover Missing Person Cases

Nearly a decade ago, Elizabeth Smart, then 14 years old, was kidnapped at knifepoint from her bedroom inside her family's Salt Lake City. Utah, home. Nine months later she was found alive.

Now, Smart, 23, will help other kidnapping victims and their families as an ABC News contributor, focusing on missing person and child abduction cases.

"She'll help our viewers better understand missing person stories from someone with the perspective to know what a family experiences when a loved one goes missing," ABC News spokesperson Julie Townsend tells The Hollywood Reporter.

Smart, who is expected to make her debut on ABC News in the next few weeks, will be "looking ahead, not looking back at her own story," Townsend said. "This is definitely not about looking backward and telling her story, which has been well told and retold."

Townsend would not say if Smart plans on moving to New York City from Utah, where she attends Brigham Young University.